permeates South Korean society, a legacy of the
13 centuries, ending in 1945, that Korea enjoyed
as a unified political entity.
This longing for reunification reaches even to
guard posts in the DMZ. In the central moun
tains, Sgt. Kim Seung Whan, his face streaked
with war paint from martial-arts practice,
admits that he is uneasy about the prospect of
fighting North Koreans. "They are our broth
ers," he says, "and yet they are our enemies.
It is heartbreaking."
the movements of two North Korean soldiers
who have emerged from their guard tower. "They
don't have any heat," the officer says. "I think
they came outside to get warm in the sun."
In these same mountains a force of one, an
amateur wildlife biologist named Lim Sun Nam,
helps me finally to see the DMZ as something
other than an armed camp. For the past five
years Lim, a former TV cameraman, has pur
sued a quixotic mission to prove the existence
in South Korea of the Siberian tiger, the tradi
tional symbol of unified
The state of war can seem weirdly unreal,
Korea. Tigers officially have
Si
tia
t
t iti
been absent from the south
as if the soldiers are actors at ahistorical ern peninsula for at least half
theme park-call it WarLand.
Entrepreneurs also eye the DMZ, scanning
the lowlands on the peninsula's west and east
coasts and seeing corridors for trade and tour
ism. Recently, both governments have cleared
minefields inside the DMZ for two north-south
railways closed since the war. In February the
first cross-border road in 50 years opened to take
South Korean tourists to visit Mount Kumgang,
a cluster of sacred peaks in the North (see
story on pages 22-3).
But the most compelling-and dreamy
vision belongs to conservationists. They look at
the wetlands of five rivers crossing the DMZ,
and at the Taebaek Mountains, a steep forested
maze of 5,000-foot peaks near the east coast, and
they see international peace parks, ecosystem
preserves, and wildlife sanctuaries.
One of the few good things to come from Ko
rea's 50-year standoff, the security shield erected
around the DMZ and its buffer zones has inad
vertently preserved the largest piece of undevel
oped land-more than 960 square miles-in all
of South Korea, one of the world's most densely
settled countries. Most of the wilderness remains
off-limits, however. To see the DMZ's star wild
life attractions-two species of rare Asian cranes
that winter in the Cheorwon Basin-visitors first
must apply to the military for permission.
Until tensions ease on the border, which seems
a very distant prospect, the only powerful bin
oculars allowed inside the DMZ will belong not
to bird-watchers but to soldiers manning hun
dreds of guard posts. On a wind-ripped moun
taintop in the central DMZ, a South Korean
officer hands me his field glasses so I can watch
26 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC * JULY 2003
a century. But from months
of camping and hiking solo
in the high country north of Hwacheon, only a
few miles south of the DMZ, Lim has found pro
vocative clues: tigerlike prints patterning the
snow, tree trunks shredded by large claws, the
remains of pigs and cows mauled by a powerful
predator, accounts from villagers of hearing roars
"like a motorcycle revving."
Lim, a short, powerful man with an Army
style flattop, hurries up a steep hillside, racing
the falling sun so he can change the film and bat
tery on a motion-sensing camera. He has posi
tioned it close to where he found several torn-up
cows. Lim does not doubt that a family of tigers
lives in these mountains. His dream is to con
vince the military to open a 500-yard-wide gap
in the DMZ fence to allow tiger populations
from the north and south to meet and breed.
But first he must see a tiger and take its picture.
Lim's stories about tigers and their hunting
prowess spook me in the gathering dark, my
nerves already frayed from living for weeks in the
tense surroundings of the DMZ. As Lim camou
flages his camera, a bright glow appears at the
brow of the hill.
"It's a searchlight," I gasp, certain that the mil
itary has arrived on yet another nighttime ma
neuver. "No, friend," Lim laughs, "that's just the
rising of the moon."
And suddenly I for
get about the DMZ.
Join our DMZ forum, or watch
Tonight we're in tiger
footage of tank maneuvers,
country. We're in wil-
Apache helicopters, and the
derness. Tonight, for
world's most dangerous golf
only a moment, we're
course at nationalgeograph
in a peaceful place.
l ic.com/ngm/0307.